China's Surpluses Start to Balance Out

By

Aaron Back

Updated Feb. 1, 2013 7:18 p.m. ET

BEIJING--China's economic relationship with the rest of the world is becoming more balanced, new data show, as China soaks up less money from the outside world and as its central bank is intervening less in markets to keep down the value of the yuan.

The ratio of China's current-account surplus—the broadest measure of its trade balance with the outside world—to gross domestic product fell to 2.6% in 2012 from 2.8% a year earlier and...